Saving Sarah (The Gold Coast Retrievers Book 1), page 9
When she looked up from her phone, she found him staring at her, his brows furrowed in confusion. What’s there to be confused about? You led me on. Or maybe I led myself on.
He pushed the tray toward her and attempted a smile. “Is everything okay?”
She shrugged, hating herself for acting like a pouty teenager but unable to form coherent, level-headed sentences until she sorted through her feelings.
“Is it about my aunt? The suspension?” he asked in a way that seemed to suggest he knew it wasn’t—but perhaps hoped it was.
Sarah was let off the hook from answering his questions when Finch’s phone trilled in his pocket. He slapped his hands against each other to brush off any stray crumbs, then pulled the device from his pocket.
“I don’t recognize the number,” he told her before clicking over to answer the call. “Hello?” His eyes widened as he listened, then he held his hand over the speaker and whispered, “Well, speak of the devil.”
Sarah could only hear muffled whispered on the other end of the conversation. As Finch attempted to rush through his call, Sarah fiddled with her own phone, trying to think up an excuse that would get her out of there.
Finch nodded and rolled his eyes as the other speaker dominated the conversation. “Yes… Yes… Okay… Today?… Is it really that urgent?… Uh-huh… Yeah… Yes, I get it… Bye.”
“Everything okay?” she asked once he’d hung up.
He frowned. “No, it’s Eleanor. She needs me at the hospital for some reason…” He paused to let out an exhausted, dramatic sigh. “But I’m not going,” he assured her, not knowing that she desperately wanted him to go—or at least to leave her.
Sarah immediately latched onto this. “Finch, you have to go. She needs you.”
“How could you be so kind to her when she’s only made trouble for you?”
Because I’m a catch, whether or not you realize it. Sarah shocked herself with this realization. She’d never thought of herself as worthy before. So why now?
She shrugged. Finch could think whatever he wanted about her. She just needed him gone. “It’s just, she doesn’t have anyone else,” she explained. “And… And I got a text from work, asking me to come in, so—yeah.”
“Okay, I mean, if you’re sure. We can head over there after lunch.”
“It sounded really urgent, and I’m not all that hungry. Why don’t we go now?” Sarah stood before Finch had a chance to weigh in, and by the time he’d taken their trays to the waiting trash cans, she’d already made it halfway back to the parking lot.
He should have kissed her. Sarah’s reaction made that much obvious.
Why did he have to go and try to be a gentleman? How had he managed to overread the situation and still reach the wrong conclusion?
The worst part was seeing how Sarah couldn’t get away from him fast enough. He wanted to explain—or to grab her and kiss her right then—but he just couldn’t do that. He needed to fix what had broken between the two of them before he could even dream of taking such a big leap forward in their relationship.
And then the hospital had called, practically pleading with him to visit his aunt.
Oh, he had hated her in that moment.
In fact, he hated her in most moments. Oh, the joy of having a family!
Sarah so quickly latched onto that escape hatch that he had little choice than to comply with the old bat’s wishes. He knew she hadn’t actually received a text calling her into work, but pointing that out would only mortify them both.
So he watched sadly as Sarah bounded out of his car with Lucky at her heels, his tail swinging along with the beat of their steps. This was it—time for the visit no one wanted to happen. Whether or not Eleanor had requested him, he already knew she wouldn’t be happy to see him. Nothing ever made that woman happy.
Gold Coast General Hospital appeared practically vacant when he arrived. Maybe nobody got sick or had accidents this time of year, or maybe they all went somewhere else. Had this place also had a scandal he knew nothing about?
Finch charged through the halls toward the room number the nurse had given him. Before he could reach Eleanor, though, a lanky young man intercepted him.
“Hi, Mr. Jameson. It is Mr. Jameson, right? I recognized you from… Yeah, so thank you for coming. We need you to sign some paperwork for your aunt, if you’ll just come with me.”
Finch followed the squeaky voiced intern—he had to be an intern, because he couldn’t have possibly been older than twenty-five—over to a nearby standing station and listened as he flipped through various items in a hastily assembled file folder.
“So this is the advance directive,” he explained, pointing to the place where Finch needed to sign below Eleanor’s signature. “It means if she stops breathing we won’t implement life-saving measures.”
Finch dropped the pen in surprise. “Is that what she really wants?”
“She already signed,” the young man pointed out.
Finch shook his head and signed where instructed—first the advance directive and then a myriad of other forms, all of which seemed far less momentous after that one.
“Okey dokey, that oughta do it!” the intern sang, clicking the pen closed. “I won’t keep you any longer.”
Finch thought about leaving from there, his commitment met, but the watchful eyes of the hospital staffer bore into his back, judging before there was even anything to judge. Rather than escaping as he’d hoped, he skulked into Eleanor’s room.
He found his great aunt seated in the bed near the window, her hands folded neatly in her lap. A little plush Golden Retriever lounged comfortably at her side. The toy seemed far too sweet for her, and he wondered briefly where she’d gotten it or why she would have kept it.
He cleared his throat, lingering in the doorway in hopes of escaping her overwhelming and often hostile gravitational pull.
“What are you doing here?” she asked with a rasp.
“The hospital called me. Wanted me to sign some forms.”
“And you did?” She looked tired—far more tired than before. Her smooth complexion was now marred by deep, dark circles around her eyes, and her hair hadn’t been curled—possibly also not brushed.
Finch nodded and ventured a step deeper into the room. Maybe this weakened version of Eleanor would play nice. Maybe she finally realized she needed him, after all. Maybe…
“Good.” Eleanor turned her head back toward the window, but he could tell her attention was still focused on him despite how she wanted things to appear. A moment later, she sighed and snapped back his way. “Well, what do you want?”
So much for his theory about having a kind encounter that day. “You know what I want,” he said, staring her down while she did the same to him.
His great aunt laughed bitterly. “Yes, you’ve become rather predictable.”
“Maybe I have, but not you…” The rage came flooding back. If he wasn’t careful, he might drown in it one day. It took everything he had to keep from yelling at the frail, old woman right there in the middle of the hospital. “Do you know you cost Sarah her job?”
She shrugged and examined her nails. Did she really believe her chipped manicure was more important than Sarah’s livelihood? “It was a means to an end,” she replied coldly.
If Eleanor was ice, then Finch was definitely fire. He knew which of those elements came out on top when the two were forced together. He just had to stay strong—keep demanding justice, answers, respect. “What? Listen to you! How could you say that? All she has ever done is help you.”
His words did nothing to melt her icy exterior. Perhaps her heart had died prior to the rest of her body. “And now she’s helping me now by staying away.”
“You’re messing with people’s lives, and you don’t even care,” Finch spat.
“I care plenty,” she insisted, but her words held little passion and likely no truth, either.
“Could have fooled me.” Finch was done playing her game. He still didn’t understand her end goals, but he no longer cared.
“Believe what you want for now.” Eleanor settled into her bed, pulling her blanket up higher on her chest. “The truth will come out eventually.”
“Will it? Because I’m done with you and your stupid mystery. The more any of us tries to help you, the more merciless you become. I’m ending it here.” Enough with the cryptic hints and the words that said nothing, the heart that felt nothing. He was nobody’s pawn, least of all Eleanor Barton’s.
“No, you’re not,” she insisted without hesitation. Apparently she still thought of herself as a queen. This only angered Finch more.
He turned to leave and even made it the length of a few rooms, but then something ignited inside of him. He couldn’t let her have the last word. Couldn’t let her think any of this was okay.
“Go ahead and believe whatever you want,” he said with a raised voice, charging back into the room. He needed her to understand that they were really, really through. “Here’s what I believe: you’re sending Sarah and I all across the coast in search of answers when you know good and well you’re the one behind that murder. You probably even liked watching him die, but now you’re dying, so you’re looking for some kind of divine forgiveness. Guess what? No one will ever forgive you. Especially not me. You’re going to die guilty and alone, and it’s going to be all your fault.”
His piece said, Finch walked away from the only family he had left.
He was definitely better off alone.
Chapter Fourteen
Sarah spent the next few days locked snugly inside her house. She couldn’t risk leaving and running into someone from work—or worse yet, Finch.
Lucky tried to comfort her for the first couple of days, but his boredom soon outweighed his sympathy. She couldn’t even bring herself to look her most loyal friend in the eyes because every time she did, he wiggled his doggie eyebrows and let out a low, soulful whine.
“I’m sorry, boy,” she said, and she really did mean it. “But we have to stay here.”
Lucky would groan and then go lie down in his oversized basket where he would watch Sarah intently from across the room.
Even my dog thinks I’m messing up my life!
Finch tried calling her more than once, but she didn’t have anything to say to him. At least not yet. Maybe after she’d had more time to cool down, to think about what she really wanted, she’d come to a different conclusion. But for now, her days were better spent alone. Plus Lucky.
She’d just finished watching an episode of some new baking show on Netflix when her phone buzzed with an incoming call. What does he want now?
When she saw that the caller wasn’t, in fact, Finch, she begrudgingly picked up. A part of her liked that he kept trying, though she hated to lead him on. What if this wasn’t right for her? What if it would never be right?
“Hello?” she answered rather dispiritedly.
“What have you been up to, girly?” Carol Graves shouted into the phone. Sarah’s favorite dog breeder was in a weird place—young enough to use the newest technology but also old enough to assume she needed to scream in order to be heard through the phone line.
“Learning how to bake cake pops and unicorn cakes,” Sarah answered, rubbing her ears to stop the ringing.
“Oh, bring me some!” Carol shouted again.
Sarah just barely had time to save herself from the second onslaught by whipping the phone away from her ear. “I said I’m learning, not that I’m doing.”
“Well, someone’s smarmy today,” Carol spat, and Sarah could practically feel the moisture hit her cheek. “Does this have anything to do with that handsome billionaire boyfriend I saw you with the other day?”
Maybe she shouldn’t have picked up the phone after all. “One, he’s not my boyfriend, and two, he’s definitely not a billionaire,” she explained, though her patience was seriously wearing thin.
Carol tutted at Sarah’s denial, then finally brought her voice down to a normal speaking level. “You think I don’t recognize the founder of my favorite social network?”
Sarah sighed but decided not to correct the other woman. Doing so would likely lead to a lengthy discussion about Finch, and that was the last topic Sarah felt like discussing these days. So much so that she volunteered another uncomfortable topic of discussion. “I got suspended from work.”
“Yes, yes, I heard.” Sympathy filled her voice, though not surprise as Sarah had expected. “Such a shame.”
“Wait… you heard?” She hugged a throw pillow to her chest, feeling the weight of everything crashing down on her all over again.
“Of course I did. From that handsome billionaire of yours, no less.”
Ugh. Sarah pinched the bridge of her nose, but it was too late to fight off the tension headache that had begun to build beneath her brow.
“He’s really worried about you, you know,” Carol prodded softly.
“Yeah, okay.” Sarah tossed the pillow back onto the couch and punched it with all her might. And like everything else in her life, she hardly made a dent.
Carol began to yell again. “I’m being truthful here! What did you do to that poor boy?”
“Me? To him? No, that’s not how it went down.” She pictured Finch as he held her in his arms after that terrifying leap from the zip line, the slow, tension-filled moment when they almost kissed, and then… him moving away, rejecting her in that moment. Perhaps for all moments.
“Then what did happen?”
“He…” Sarah stopped herself, realizing how stupid the argument was. He didn’t kiss me when I wanted to.
“That’s what I thought,” Carol said with a disappointed tut-tut.
Sarah just didn’t have the strength to argue anymore. Instead, she decided to ask a question that had always plagued her about her breeder friend. “Carol?”
“Yes, dear?”
“How come you never got married?”
Carol let out a wistful sigh. One of her dogs barked in the distance, and Lucky tilted his head in response. “I’ve thought about that long and hard,” Carol answered after a lengthy pause. “And I’m not entirely sure why. I guess it’s because no one ever made me love and hate them at the same time.”
“You think love is… hate?” This was certainly a new definition, but lately Sarah had been battling so many new feelings she couldn’t decide whether or not she agreed with Carol’s assessment.
“It has to be, at least in part,” the other woman insisted. “Otherwise, how can you appreciate the good without the bad? How can you know your feelings are real if they’re never challenged?”
She had a point here, and she’d also described how Sarah felt about Finch perfectly. Of course, none of this made her any less confused. None of it changed the fact that he’d had the opportunity to kiss her and hadn’t. Ugh.
“Are you happy, Carol? Are you happy living all alone?”
“But I’m not alone. I have the dogs. And I have you and the others. You’re my family.”
A family through work. That would be nice if, one, Sarah hadn’t been suspended from her job and, two, all of her patients didn’t die within a matter of years after she met them.
“Now will you give that nice boy a call?” Carol asked, hope lighting in her voice.
“I’ll think about it,” Sarah answered before ending the call and looking back toward Lucky.
She motioned for him to join her at the couch. “Do you want to see Finch?” she asked the attentive canine.
Lucky barked, whined, wagged his tail, and spun in a circle, then grabbed his leash from the hook by the door and waited.
Well, at least his feelings were clear.
Now Sarah just had to figure out her own.
Finch listened to the phone ring on an endless loop. It didn’t even go to voicemail this time, so he hung up and tried one more time. He’d called Sarah every day that week without any luck, but he just wasn’t ready to give up on her yet. Oh, how he hoped he wasn’t irritating her!
When she actually picked up after the second ring, he felt so shocked he nearly fumbled his phone. “You’re alive!” he shouted breathlessly.
“Yeah, I’m alive… and bored.”
Lucky barked in the background, apparently agreeing with his owner’s statement.
“How can I help?” Finch asked. His cheeks hurt from smiling so hard.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about Eleanor’s mystery, and I think I have an idea.” Okay, so they wouldn’t be addressing their almost kiss or the fact she’d been avoiding him for nearly an entire week. Still, he was too happy to care.
“I told her we were done helping,” he confessed, thinking back to their confrontation in the hospital so many days ago.
Sarah sighed in frustration. “Maybe you are, but I’m not.”
“But she was awful to you!” Finch’s chest clenched. Now that he had Sarah back, he didn’t want to waste any more time helping that ungrateful old woman. He only wanted Sarah.
Her voice became soft, almost like a whisper. “Yeah, but it’s kind of all I have right now. And I just… I need something.”
“Are they still investigating you at work?” Finch hated that she’d had to face this alone when he so desperately wanted to be there to help her through this. He’d once lost everything, too. There was life on the other side, and since meeting Sarah, there might also be happiness waiting, too.
“No, I got cleared, but I took some vacation time so I could think.” How long had this been, and why had no one informed him? They’d lost so many days when they could have been together, learning about each other, figuring out where things might take them.
Oh, he was infatuated with this Sarah Campbell. The last time he’d devoted so much passion to any one thing, Reel Life had been born. What could come of him and Sarah? He didn’t know yet, but he had a feeling it would be even better.
“What have you been thinking about?” he asked, wondering how soon he could get her to agree to come see him.
